Two skiers that went missing near Lake Tahoe during a winter storm were found safe Monday morning, authorities said. Patrick Frost, 35, and Christopher Gerwig, 32, both of San Francisco were spotted by a Placer County Sheriff's Department helicopter about two miles from the Alpine Meadows ski resort just west of Lake Tahoe. The two, described as expert skiers, were picked up near Hell Hole Reservoir and were being flown to Auburn Airport, department spokeswoman Kelly Hernandez said. She did not know their condition.

Rescuers had been concerned that fresh snow and plunging temperatures would complicate efforts to find the skiers, but were hopeful they had survived.

The storm dumped between one and two feet of snow around Lake Tahoe and up to three feet in the mountains before moving toward Southern California and Arizona, said Mark Deutschendorf, a forecaster for the National Weather Service in Reno, Nev.

Alpine Meadows was closed Sunday because a 12-foot-deep avalanche triggered by an avalanche-control crew covered its main entrance road, Carter said. No one was trapped or injured by the avalanche.

In Southern California, meanwhile, rescuers searched for 53-year-old Ellen Coleman of Riverside, who was reported missing Sunday, possibly on the east face of Mount San Jacinto. Coleman rode a tramway to roughly 8,500 feet elevation, and intended to try to hike to the summit, around 10,800 feet, according to the Riverside County sheriff's department.

Residents of Southern California braced themselves for the worst of another winter storm predicted to soak lowland areas and coat the mountains with snow.

Overnight, snow was so heavy that a section of Interstate 5, which passes through the Tehachapi Mountains about 65 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, was closed shortly after midnight because snow and ice made the road treacherous, officials said.

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Associated Press writers Martin Griffith in Reno, Nev., Brian Melley in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., and Thomas Watkins in Los Angeles contributed to this report.